@oldtimer-11 just checking to see that you’re ok in this blizzard and can get your car out if you need to.
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Thansks for the concern, my car is buried but I don’t need anything for a few more days and we are supposed to be in the 50s by the weekend. I did get the large snowblower they have at our assimilated living facility going to get one of the employee’s car out its parking place but the pressure of the snow above it has turned the bottom of the snowbanks into ice. This employee had bee here since Friday morning as had many others.
The main road we are on has been plowed many times but our driveway was only plowed out last night and the plow could do nothing to free the parked cars. We had another 8" by this morning.
It is supposed to be in the 50s before the weekend. There is still a driving ban here. The suburb I used to live in is all plowed out and has no ban, but the more affluent suburb I live in now won;t collect enough taxes to have enough snow fighting equipment tor men.
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Snow was not a problem, Yesterday caught the virus or whatever wife got last Thursday after a lunch with friends. Covid tests for her and I negative, Watery eyes cough and flem. missed 4 days of xmas celebrations.
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That’s a relief. I was thinking about what you might have to deal with, and hoping that you would be okay.
Others in the upstate region were not so fortunate:
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Down in the MId-Atlantic Bananna Belt we’ve been fortunate to avoid the snow and the much more typical Black Ice.
For those who have been not as fortunate , open another bottle of wine/whatever, throw another log on the fire and cuddle up because in the words of Dylan, “You ain’t going no where”.
Reminds me of when my son’s girlfriend trudged over a mile during a blizzard only to get “snowed in” at our house. .
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And people here in NH give me weird looks when I tell them that I moved here from Central NY for better weather.
yes, the death toll was greater than the Blizzard of 77 which dumped more than twice as much snow and had colder temps.
Back in 77 su8vs were scarce on the ground and cell phone were huge and rare so people had no blind faith that 4 wheel drive and a cell phone had magical properties to protect them.
People died in their cars in front of their houses in 77 because to open your car door was instant pain and they closed the car door and waited for a lull in the wind that did not come for more than 3 days.
We get 3 meal a day here and the only glitch was Friday am when the only breakfast was cold cereal, Our cook had made it out Friday after supper and we did not get another one until Sat. lunch. He walked to work and home Sat. Sun. and Mon. Monday some people were able to uber in and out so the workers who had been here since Fri. 6amm could go home. The staff here was heroic, switching jobs as needed and all but 4 stayed the whole weekend. They did not have a change of clothes, towels . They had some empty rooms to sleep in but most had no beds or bedding.
I am here because my wife needs to be. I am one of only two men here that does not need a walker or wheelchair. We have a large comfortable two bedroom apartment with a 29 ’ living room. This is an enhance assisted living facility and is the only place my wife can be outside of a nursing home. Life here is much better than a nursing home.
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I live about an hour from OldTimer-11 and we had bitter cold and windy conditions for days. But we got almost zero snow. We are far enough away and off line from the lake effect snow belt that we lucked out. Many of my colleagues live in Buffalo and the surrounding area and I have been getting lots of pictures of buried cars, walkways filled with feet of snow, and impassable streets. Lots of reports of closed grocery stores and, where you can find open ones, empty shelves. Glad to hear OldTimer is safe.
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That’s lake effect snow for you. I’ve traveled down I-81 many times. Hit a blizzard where it’s snowing 5" an hour. Travel 10 miles. No snow and bright sunny skies. Travel another 10 miles and back in blizzard whiteout conditions. Then another 10 miles and no snow. Those areas I traveled through with snow - had accumulations of over 2’. And not one snowflake fell in the clear areas I drove through.
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I agree 100%
They probably didn’t go out looting either. I’m not speaking against stealing food in a desperate situation when the store is closed without warning, but I don’t think that’s what was going on here.
In 77 there were MAYBE 100 people with cell phones in extremely limited areas. They weren’t mobile or really portable. There were car-phones - but that’s a completely different technology.
I finished my undergrad the year before at Syracuse University. Syracuse got dumped with snow in 77 and no place to put the snow. Oswego NY had over 240" of snow that year. Some towns in Tub Hill Plateau reported seeing over 400" that year.
When I moved to NH a few years later, people were telling me about the Blizzard of 77 in NH an MA. Not as much snow as NY, but same conditions. Cars stranded on the Highways for MILES and miles, Many deaths.
ck in the inter of 72 I as driving for a Canadian company out of Buffalo running Watertown turns, actually meeting at Malone and Champlain.Longways truck stop or straight through to Montreal via Malone and Champlain.
The only all night place to eat after Watertown was in Chateugay NY. I parked behind about 15 rigs and walked to the restaurant. The roads had been plowed smoothe and it was very cold, I would guess -30F. The sky was inky black with the milky way blazing like a bright river and the air was still.
Huge snowflakes tarted falling straight down out of the starry sky.they were anout the size of a saucer and more than 1/2" thick. You could hear them hit the ground. By the time I got to the restaurant they were over my ankles.
The only time I have seen anything similar was coming north out of Binghamton on 81 during a bitter cold sunrise.
The flakes were falling out of a clear blue sky, and about half the size of the ones I had seen before. I know it was at least -25F because trucks that did not have treated fuel were coasting over to the side and that requires at least 25 below for the diesel fuel to gel.
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That has to be the WORSE winter drive you can possibly get. Ice-Road truckers would have a hard time with that route. Lake effect snow is so unpredictable. Even with advances in weather forecasting - they can only predict that there will be Lake Effect snow and can only give a general area it will occur.
When it’s -30 and starts to snow. Then vehicles drive over it…within minutes it turns into ice. Extremely dangerous conditions.
Yes, we regularly drove in conditions that would have ice road truckers parked. The only time I failed to get through in the allotted 10 hour driving times on Watertown turns or bed runs to Montreal were when police closed the roads.
If you parked or went to bed because of blizzard conditions, you had better have the badge number and name of the cop that told you the road was closed.
If you had told me I was going to be driving 70+ mph on snow and ice before I started driving up there I would have said you were crazy.
I figured if our French Canadian drivers out of Montreal could do it, I could do it.
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Wow SU go Orange. IIRC I was still in Syracuse working in a bakery we had started (Kasolo) living above the King David restaurant on M street (best Falafael ever). Funny as a student when the shoveling gets done for you and you don’t have to drive to work you hardly notice the snow 
Years ago during first year college I lived in a 300 hundred student residence hall. Most every day at 8 am we students would be thinking of reasons why we should skip our first couple of classes and sleep in until 10 am. But if it snowed overnight and classes were canceled, we be awake, dressed, and ready for enjoying the day by 7:30 am … lol … snow is all a matter of perspective I guess.
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Sounds like a very tough way to make a living.
I happened to click through the local public tv station and they were reminiscing about the great Minnesota storm back around 1880 or so. About 230 people died. Trains stuck. People froze to death. Food and fuel deliveries couldn’t be made, etc. no dozers or snow blowers then. South Dakota relatives talked about stringing a rope from the house to the barn so they wouldn’t lose their way. Not to minimize our current conditions and New York especially but life on the prairie was no picnic.
A week or so ago, my nephew in Pierre, sd sent a picture of his front door. The snow was up about five feet on his storm door. The had to dig out to catch their flight to Mexico.
Survival efforts of modern man. Before transportation people survived off of food stored in their cellar. Today people fly to Puerto Vallarta and if a flight is cancelled due to weather, you will hear from my lawyer.